As people who have read previous posts on this blog are aware of, I’m trying to respray my 1996 Honda CB500 to make it look a bit less aged. You might imagine that if I repaint the body panels and make them look all shiny and new, the rest of the bike will look even more old and shabby in comparison. So it is important to consider repainting the engine casing and the exhaust. 

Now what type of paint can you use on such components?

While researching this project, I came across a forum on MSN Groups dedicated entirely to Honda CB500’s. Unfortunately, since then MSN Groups closed down and all that valuable information was lost forever… But I do remember reading some posts from people who wanted to repaint their engine or exhaust and the prevalent opinion seemed to be just walking into Halfords and picking up:

1. Extra High Temperature Paint (comes in a rattle can) 

2. Plastikote BBQ Paint (also a rattle can)

Since both components tend to get quite hot while riding, it is vital to use a paint that can stand such temperatures. If you don’t, you may end up spoiling your brand new paint by having it flake off or discolour due to the heat.

For your engine, if you would like to match the original colour, Aluminium seems to be the shade of choice (In Extra High Temperature paint). Now I don’t know for sure if my engine is still the original colour or not, since it looks like it has been painted at least once or twice, judging from the flaking. However, it seems worth a shot, as I like the shade shown on the cap of the spray can. So I think I’ll try that out in the near future, when I get a weekend of dry weather. 

High Temperature paint comes in many other colours too though. You could get matte black for your exhaust, or even Red if you’re daring! 

For my exhaust, I’d like to stick with what it is now (sort of) - Black. And since people seemed to have a high opinion of the BBQ Paint I mention above; I’m highly tempted by the promise of a satin black finish that will hopefully last a while. The advantage of going with a satin finish rather than matte black, is that apparently matte black paint can rub off at times. Also, hopefully it will be easier to keep clean if it’s satin paint. 

Painting the exhaust seems less straightforward. At this point I am not sure if the downpipes can (or should) be painted also. They are quite rusty an flaky, and one cannot be certain if they would survive a good sanding. Perhaps I’ll just have to put some anti rust treatment on them and hope for the best… 

The exhaust itself is not in a great shape either; there is a small hole in it somewhere as well as some rust & scuffs. Since I’ll have to spray paint this, it also needs to come off the bike somehow, and the bolts are totally rusty. I foresee plenty of problems trying to open those bolts… 

So the action plan is as follows:

• Try to take above mentioned bike parts off without damaging anything (like bolts, brackets, or the parts themselves of course). 
• Sand off the scuffs, rust and loose paint until I have a fairly smooth surface to work with. This may be impossible on the downpipes, so I’m aiming for at least the exhaust can itself. 
• Use Hammerite Rust treatment on all rust which could not be sanded off. 
• Give everything 2-3 coats of BBQ Paint, or keep going until an even finish is achieved - Sanding inbetween coats to smooth out any dripping or bubbling paint and to prevent flaking of the paint.

If anybody has any suggestions regarding repainting engines and exhausts, I’d be very grateful!

Unfortunately my CB500 respray project has been on hold for the past couple of weeks. I’ve had nothing but trouble with the bike on the daily (modest) run to work. 

Symptoms: Perfect running until for no apparent reason the bike gets jerky, loses power, revs fall, and just acts as if it’s run out of petrol. Upon pulling over it would stall, and refuse to start for the next 3-4 minutes or so. After it does start again, upon revving it will backfire once or twice and continue to run perfectly until everything starts all over again….

So what does a girl do? Getting sick and tired of having the bike die on me in the midst of rush hour traffic up to three times in a 1.5 mile trip to work, I decided to drop the bike with a mechanic. Picking a “proper shop” nearby, I explained the problem and hoped for the best. Then I remembered that sometimes (every few months or so) the bike tends to overheat and spit out coolant. That little bit of extra information pretty much distracted the mechanic from then on - insisting that both problems MUST be related.

A phonecall a few hours later spelled trouble. The mechanic said he had a look around the cooling system of the bike and found that the coolant level was extremely low. He then tested the fan (which worked) and ran the bike a little. To his horror coolant gushed out of the bike as soon as the engine ran for a minute or so, not enough to make it hot!

His diagnosis: blown head gasket or cylinder ring. He told me he’d do a compression test.

Result: left cylinder: 175psi, right cylinder: 125psi. He was even more sure now that it was a major engine problem causing all my trouble… Quoting me a grand for all the work to put it right, I was totally horrified obviously (especially since the bike had cost me less than that in the first place!) so I decided to take it back as it was.

Mechanic #2. Luckily, there’s this other mechanic close to where I work who helped me out on previous occasions (see: Replacement Spark Plugs) I gave the bike to him, explaining what the other mechanic had said (blown headgasket - repair: 1000 bucks) and although the repair cost gave him a good laugh (and he quoted me about 350 for the same thing) he promised to have a good look around the bike to see what was up.

A few hours and phone calls later: he claimed the bike ran beautifully, and after having it on for a while, coolant stopped leaking out, making him suspect that it had been overfilled. It couldn’t possibly be anything as serious as the headgasket then… 

As my husband and I had suspected from the beginning of this whole ordeal, I told him maybe the tank and carbs are dirty. I asked him to strip the carbs and clean out the tank and see what he finds inside. He was happy to oblige. Indeed I get a cheerful phonecall that evening detailing how he’d found “a load of shit inside the carbs and tank” and the bike was still running beautifully. 

Yay! I got it back last night, drove it around til it overheated and spat coolant out again.. but it didn’t stop even once! Sure I know I should have the radiator fan looked at (It doesn’t cut in even when you could use the engine for a stove), but hey, from home to work it won’t even get luke warm. At the moment (having spent what I have just now on two separate mechanics’ fees) I think I’ve bought myself some time.

Morale of the story: 

1. Before paying a mechanic a grand to work on your old vehicle, take a second opinion!

2. If the bike feels like it’s not getting any fuel, it might just be as simple as it literally not getting any fuel.

3. Older bikes might have rust in the tank which might eventually cause running problems. 

For more information on headgasket problems, see my next post “Headgasket Woes”.

A few months back I tried to start the CB500 in the cold, and stupidly switched on the choke before switching in the engine on. This little mistake turned into a big nuisance as the engine started, coughed and stopped and left me standing outside my office, repeatedly trying to start the bike again. However as the engine had got flooded with excess petrol, nothing happened. I ended up parking the bike overnight, in order to get it fixed the following day.

As I told the mechanic what had happened he explained the following: Once the carbs flood with fuel, the spark plugs will get wet and basically become useless. After that, the points of the spark plugs (even if you do take them out, wipe them dry, and sand off the dirt from them) will never be clean enough to give a reliable spark.

It’s not all that bad though. Replacement spark plugs come for around £6, and if you have the original tools that come with the bike, you will already have all required tools to replace the spark plugs yourself.

Here’s what you do. Once you get two replacement spark plugs, take the side covers (shrouds) off the tank. On the top of the engine you will see black rubber plugs which go all the way inside. This is a little fiddly, especially if you have big hands, but it’s just about possible to pull out the plugs from the engine and take them out entirely, put the spark plug socket inside the cavity you just removed the rubber plugs from. Open the spark plug by twisting on the tool with a spanner going anti clockwise. This may require quite a bit of force!

Once the spark plugs are unscrewed, just take them out, if you can reach make sure the area round the spark plugs is clean and dry, and put the new one in. Repeat this process on the other side of the engine. Once you’re done, simply push the plugs back in, make sure they are properly tightly connected - you might feel a subtle click when they push in, after which they won’t move around anymore. Then put the shrouds back on and you should be up and running!

Just wanting to look something up I did a quick search for an online version of a service manual, well here is the full thing:

Honda CB500(S) 93-01 Service Manual

Who doesn’t like a bargain? I for one am completely crazy about bargains. From Electronics to vehicles, I love to look around auctions and classified ads, to see if something catches my eye. Now (un)fortunately this trait is shared by my husband as well. And one of our favourite pastimes is browsing Ebay Motors, to look at the offering of cars and motorcycles. Now it’s true that you are risking getting a raw deal - perhaps someone lists a vehicle with hidden problems, or worse yet, there is no vehicle at all, yet you end up paying a deposit after winning that tempting auction…

However, that’s a very small part of buying vehicles on Ebay. Let me tell you my own personal experiences buying the Honda CB500 on Ebay…

In a place not far from here, in a time long long ago (1 mile from here, 1 year and 2 months ago)….

My husband was miserable taking the bus to work every day (Men! Especially those that love to drive!). And it didn’t help that we had planned to go to Ace Cafe that day with some acquaintances… We had the idea firmly in our heads that we needed a motorcycle. Now the alternatives to Ebay, especially because we were on a tight budget, couldn’t really compete. Our budget was £1000 including insurance and a helmet, and AutoTrader had nothing appropriate within that range, but Ebay had lots of bikes, ready to go; Taxed, MOT’ed and in full working order!

So it had to be Ebay. We had picked two bikes we were interested in; a Honda CB250 (because it was cute, and at the time I was hoping I’d get to keep it), and a CB500 - fairly impulsive decisions both of them, we did not go and see them in advance even!

So after coming back from Ace Cafe, both bike auctions were set to finish within 30 minutes from each other. That evening, I (being the nerd in the house) had the nerve wrecking task of winning a bike in an auction. My first ever Ebay auction actually! The CB250 was first up, and I tried my best (crude) Ebay bidding strategy. It involved just placing a bid and seeing what would happen. I didn’t bid particularly high, instead I saw the minutes count down, kept refreshing the page, and was outbid (or “sniped” as they call it) within the last 30 seconds of the end of the auction - too soon to do anything about! Of course I was devastated for a moment there, but went right on to the next auction. Had a quick discussion on what the plan of action should be - pestering my husband to give me an exact figure he wouldn’t go above under any circumstance (response: “I don’t know!”). And this time I waited patiently, until about 2 minutes before the end of the auction. I bid some amount I came up with myself. As those two minutes passed, I furiously kept refreshing, and even increased my bid a little to prevent the previous sniping experience from happening again!

As many of you must have noticed, the last bit of the auction is where all the action happens! And indeed, someone tried to steal this bike away as well, but didn’t bid high enough so that night itself, we had gotten ourselves into completely uncharted territory! About to buy a bike, from a guy we didn’t know, who said he didn’t have the V5 back from the DVLA yet as he’d just bought the bike not so long ago, without even seeing the bike in advance! We arranged for some insurance, called the seller to arrange a day and time for the pick up.. and before we knew it, we were on a bus to Staines (where we’d never been before), carrying 792.20 in cash, one helmet, and a print out from Multimap. We reached in the pitch dark, managed to somehow find the road we were looking for, and my husband had his first go at riding the bike. Luckily it was an easy match for him, and he rode it all the way home, while I went back on the bus again (as I didn’t have a helmet).

Luckily all ended well, the V5 was sent to us within a few weeks, and now it’s still working and being used by me to commute every day. But it could’ve gone quite wrong! In my next post I will give some tips and precautions you should take if you are looking to buy a vehicle off Ebay.

Well, I’ve been a bit busy lately, blowing some cash on bits for the bike. And even if I say so myself, I’m quite pleased actually. Let’s recap what I’m trying to achieve; My 1996 Honda CB500 is looking a bit tired and rusty, and I’m planning to do a bit of DIY restauration and custom paint work on it to make it look good again.

My wishlist before starting the project was as follows:

1. Replacement footpeg rubbers - CHECK
2. Replacement body panels in order to do a full DIY respray, without the risk of permanent damage to original paint! - CHECK (just require front mudguard, but I’ve got my eye on one already…)
3. Possibly replacement headlight cover
4. Respray of engine & gear box
5. New levers to go with the new handlebar
6. New, more modern looking indicators - CHECK
7. Respray of exhaust, or new one depending on how difficult it would be to get a good finish on the old one.
8. Respray of grab rails and other bits and pieces.

So as you can see, there is definitely some progress there already! Last weekend when the body panels I have purchased got delivered, I did see that I’ve got a long way to go in order to achieve what I want.. The tank I purchased needs a bit of care - some rust removal and dents & scratches to be filled. So I’ve stocked up on Hammerite Rust Remover and also a tube of Body Filler from Halfords. And after giving sanding a shot for a while on Saturday, I’ve decided there’s another thing I’m going to have to invest in. An electric sander.

I’m not yet entirely sure what type I should go for, but at the moment it’s between a regular el-cheapo detail sander or a Black & Decker Mouse. The latter seems to be quite good, as far as I could tell from some online reviews I found. But it’s going to take a bit more time researching before I actually buy one.

So here goes, my updated wishlist:

1. Replacement front mudguard, perhaps a fairing as well
2. Possibly replacement headlight cover
3. Respray of engine & gear box
4. New levers to go with the new handlebar
5. Respray of exhaust, or new one depending on how difficult it would be to get a good finish on the old one.
6. Respray of grab rails and other bits and pieces.
7. Electric Sander